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Dragon Riders of Elantia (Jasmine Walt) #3
Might of the Dragon: a Dragon Fantasy Adventure
Zara and Lessie’s adventure continues in book three of this action-packed dragon rider series! Separated from her dragon and stranded in enemy territory, Zara Kenrook has been branded as a traitor and a deserter by her own people. In order to survive, she temporarily teams up with Salcombe, posing as his high society wife and pretending to help him while desperately searching for a way to foil the impending war and reunite with Lessie. With no allies to aid her, and danger lurking around every corner, Zara’s chances of success grow slimmer by the day. But insurmountable odds have never stopped Zara before, and she’s not about to give in. Not when the price of failure is not just the fall of Elantia, but of dragonkind itself…
- GenresFantasy
256 pages, Paperback
Published February 17, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 24, 2024
What happened?
The first two books were hardly high literature, but they were fun and fast paced with an engaging protagonist and supporting characters that were beginning to round out in their development, and the relationship with Lessie is always a delight.
In this book, first we get yet another "gotcha, now you're back on my fetch quest" bit with Salcombe. It is not helped that I did this via audiobook and the voice given to Salcombe is dripping with evil all the time, so no nuance. There's discussion that the potion is corrupting his potential earlier paternal or protective feelings over Zara, but he's also having her babysat by a rapey sociopath while frequently being generally abusive without much contrast between behaviors. Zara's feelings are similarly dismissive where she'll be opining about whether Salcombe *ever* felt fondly towards her, but then sniping back and forth with him the next minute, and almost fond of him the next minute, without any real sign that this is causing significant internal strife.
The villains are straight up Gargamel levels of cartoonish. The bodyguard not only likes violence, not only calls the protagonist a bitch, he gets off on it too, and as a finishing touch, immediately grabs and nearly kills a small child because villains gotta villain.
Salcombe is weak and dying so naturally he wants to bring back a great force of evil to consume the entire world. I was okay with this in the first two books as the corrupting influence but carrying over half the story sans Lessie of just going place to place, bickering, and then going to another place shuffles between repetitive and simply unpleasant to read. It's not that I don't like depressing hopeless arcs (though not generally in my silly dragon riding escapist fiction), but it just drags on.
In the meantime, she naturally accidents herself into destroying a critical alliance and then, even better, manages to fly over mid escaping the military (more on that in a minute) and sees a massive advancing army that no spies or surveillance uncovered, just her, so now she needs to warn Elantia and the other dragonriders before they mow down her city and friends and kill all the dragons. Okay, we are starting to veer heavily into Mary Suedom but okay.
So developed love interest who started becoming a wood block last book and in this book is just completely acting out of character for no reason while being an idiot helps rescue/abduct/arrest her back to the military where she's a murderer, traitor, spy, probably kicks puppies and infants for fun, etc. Lessie was sent back to safety injured and with full knowledge of the story, but apparently no one believes her or listens to her because Reasons. Apparently Zara just sent her back to camp because she was inconvenient and needed her out of the way so she could spy in peace. Oh, and she killed her commanding officer and his much larger dragon because that's incredibly plausible, even though her previous insubordination was saving people, nor has she ever given the military reason to think she's murderous. And she was retrieved by Salcolme, someone the military knew had been stalking her before AND had kidnapped her.
Doesn't matter, because everyone in this book except Zara, Lord Tavarian, and her female friend are all evil and stupid. So a woman that hates her apparently is in charge of every part of a court martial, makes up a bunch of utterly unsupported claims, nearly lets her die, wants her rattling around in a cage, no one thinks she's entitled to counsel even though she is, and then utterly loses her shit mid hearing even sputtering about dragons as mere animals. Why not.
Fortunately Tavarian ex machina sweeps in to save the day by talking, I guess. Barely preventing her from being sent to prison where... she would have been immediately released if he'd taken an extra day but DRAMA.
And then they make out because the much older man of ambiguous age who was more being presented as a true father figure to Zara rather than her childhood of only being 'loved' when someone wanted something from her is now the winner of the love triangle.
Oh yeah, and barely any dragons.
WTF. I was really enjoying the series so I'll likely still start the next one, but if this cliff dive of writing style and characterization continues, I think I'll be done.
The first two books were hardly high literature, but they were fun and fast paced with an engaging protagonist and supporting characters that were beginning to round out in their development, and the relationship with Lessie is always a delight.
In this book, first we get yet another "gotcha, now you're back on my fetch quest" bit with Salcombe. It is not helped that I did this via audiobook and the voice given to Salcombe is dripping with evil all the time, so no nuance. There's discussion that the potion is corrupting his potential earlier paternal or protective feelings over Zara, but he's also having her babysat by a rapey sociopath while frequently being generally abusive without much contrast between behaviors. Zara's feelings are similarly dismissive where she'll be opining about whether Salcombe *ever* felt fondly towards her, but then sniping back and forth with him the next minute, and almost fond of him the next minute, without any real sign that this is causing significant internal strife.
The villains are straight up Gargamel levels of cartoonish. The bodyguard not only likes violence, not only calls the protagonist a bitch, he gets off on it too, and as a finishing touch, immediately grabs and nearly kills a small child because villains gotta villain.
Salcombe is weak and dying so naturally he wants to bring back a great force of evil to consume the entire world. I was okay with this in the first two books as the corrupting influence but carrying over half the story sans Lessie of just going place to place, bickering, and then going to another place shuffles between repetitive and simply unpleasant to read. It's not that I don't like depressing hopeless arcs (though not generally in my silly dragon riding escapist fiction), but it just drags on.
In the meantime, she naturally accidents herself into destroying a critical alliance and then, even better, manages to fly over mid escaping the military (more on that in a minute) and sees a massive advancing army that no spies or surveillance uncovered, just her, so now she needs to warn Elantia and the other dragonriders before they mow down her city and friends and kill all the dragons. Okay, we are starting to veer heavily into Mary Suedom but okay.
So developed love interest who started becoming a wood block last book and in this book is just completely acting out of character for no reason while being an idiot helps rescue/abduct/arrest her back to the military where she's a murderer, traitor, spy, probably kicks puppies and infants for fun, etc. Lessie was sent back to safety injured and with full knowledge of the story, but apparently no one believes her or listens to her because Reasons. Apparently Zara just sent her back to camp because she was inconvenient and needed her out of the way so she could spy in peace. Oh, and she killed her commanding officer and his much larger dragon because that's incredibly plausible, even though her previous insubordination was saving people, nor has she ever given the military reason to think she's murderous. And she was retrieved by Salcolme, someone the military knew had been stalking her before AND had kidnapped her.
Doesn't matter, because everyone in this book except Zara, Lord Tavarian, and her female friend are all evil and stupid. So a woman that hates her apparently is in charge of every part of a court martial, makes up a bunch of utterly unsupported claims, nearly lets her die, wants her rattling around in a cage, no one thinks she's entitled to counsel even though she is, and then utterly loses her shit mid hearing even sputtering about dragons as mere animals. Why not.
Fortunately Tavarian ex machina sweeps in to save the day by talking, I guess. Barely preventing her from being sent to prison where... she would have been immediately released if he'd taken an extra day but DRAMA.
And then they make out because the much older man of ambiguous age who was more being presented as a true father figure to Zara rather than her childhood of only being 'loved' when someone wanted something from her is now the winner of the love triangle.
Oh yeah, and barely any dragons.
WTF. I was really enjoying the series so I'll likely still start the next one, but if this cliff dive of writing style and characterization continues, I think I'll be done.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 17, 2023
The third book is just as great as the first two! So far I have to say that the Dragon Riders of Elantia has been an excellent, fun, and exciting journey, one that I am very excited to continue! One thing I have to say is that having 6 books that are easily read quickly is so much better than having one really long book in my opinion. I love having bit-sized chunks to read instead of one big, long book! I don't really have a lot of time to read really long books, plus I love bragging that it only took me a day to read a book! lol Anyway, if you like fantasy, dragons, kick-ass women characters who are as tough as you could like, then this series is perfect for you! If you like Mercedes Lackey's Herald books, you'll love this series! I look forward to reading other series by Jasmine Walt when I'm finished with this one!
July 11, 2024
The timing wasn't making sense reading from an audiobook perspective (unless I missed something). If it takes two days to fly to a foreign island to a location in her homeland, and it takes 3 days by boat, how come an army of 1000 cannons and 50K troops can walk that same distance in two days? It would take them 3-4 weeks.
Many questions arose in this book that didn't make sense, and I wasn't a fan of all officers having personal prejudices against Zara. Ground dwellers didn't like her for being a rider and riders don't like her for being a ground dweller. The amount of oppression for no reason was getting old.
Nevertheless, the story is so interesting that it warrants 5 stars. The politics were fun. I want more of her and Lord T. but he hardly has any scenes in any of the books.
Many questions arose in this book that didn't make sense, and I wasn't a fan of all officers having personal prejudices against Zara. Ground dwellers didn't like her for being a rider and riders don't like her for being a ground dweller. The amount of oppression for no reason was getting old.
Nevertheless, the story is so interesting that it warrants 5 stars. The politics were fun. I want more of her and Lord T. but he hardly has any scenes in any of the books.
July 15, 2024
I really like this series. I love Zara's character. She is smart, fierce and determined. Her dragon Lessie is also awesome. Lessie has attitude and knows what she wants.
Now Zara is being held captive by Salcombe again. The fact that he has some of Zara's hair makes it possible for him to track her. Zara vows to fix that. Now she has to pose as his high society wife and use her skill to find a piece of a dragon heart or risk punishment. Lessis has been upset since being seperated from Zara and she's had enough. When the pair is reunited, Zara gets another surprise and it wasn't the good kind. It will take all of Zara's talents to get herself cleared.
Now Zara is being held captive by Salcombe again. The fact that he has some of Zara's hair makes it possible for him to track her. Zara vows to fix that. Now she has to pose as his high society wife and use her skill to find a piece of a dragon heart or risk punishment. Lessis has been upset since being seperated from Zara and she's had enough. When the pair is reunited, Zara gets another surprise and it wasn't the good kind. It will take all of Zara's talents to get herself cleared.
January 14, 2024
I really like this one, the politics of the military and Zara being separated from Leslie are a good plot, and is very interesting to see how they are keep being puting into difficult choices and with little support in order to serve what very individual seems to think is the greater good.
Love how they show us the other characters and also that Zara realizes that the boy she likes is not aligned with her interests.
Best part is the relationship between dragon and rider, and that they consider each other the most important, they are the true soulmates of the story 💙
Love how they show us the other characters and also that Zara realizes that the boy she likes is not aligned with her interests.
Best part is the relationship between dragon and rider, and that they consider each other the most important, they are the true soulmates of the story 💙
May 3, 2024
The third book is just as great as the previous two. The journey continues. It remains exciting. Politics and the military separate Zara from her dragon Lessie.
I love the character development and how it turns out that the boy Zara liked may not be quite as suitable after all. More affection grows with each book for Lord Tavarian.
I love the character development and how it turns out that the boy Zara liked may not be quite as suitable after all. More affection grows with each book for Lord Tavarian.
February 13, 2024
Meh
I loved the first book—it was so good. Book two was okay but Zara was getting annoying. This book was even worse. Zara has gone from smart and interesting to stupid and helpless. I’ll try book four but that will be the last one if things don’t get better.
I loved the first book—it was so good. Book two was okay but Zara was getting annoying. This book was even worse. Zara has gone from smart and interesting to stupid and helpless. I’ll try book four but that will be the last one if things don’t get better.
November 1, 2023
Fabulous
What wonderful story, it keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time! I can not wait to read the next one!
What wonderful story, it keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time! I can not wait to read the next one!
December 19, 2023
Am enjoying this series from Jasmine Walt. I hadn't read her before, but have been reading different authors this last year. I will continue reading the rest of the series.
May 19, 2024
A little bit on the slow side. Hoping we get to a battle soon!
June 17, 2024
Love, love, LOVE this series!!! 👏👏👏😍😍😍
March 17, 2023
This is an "edge of your seat" story and very well written. I an growing to like Zara and Lessie (her Dragon) more and more with each book, as they show a strong sense of value of heart, mind, and soul. The plot is easily followed, but you do have to pay close attention, the characters, both protagonists and antagonists, are richly endowed, and the story is very very good. I most highly recommend this book.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews